Former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting revealed that he was approached for a coaching role with team India earlier this year during the IPL. Rahul Dravid was finally announced as the coach of the India team after Ravi Shastri’s tenure ended after the T20 World Cup.

Talking to The Grade Cricketer podcast, Ricky Ponting said that taking up a coaching role with the Indian team would have made him give up on a few things which were difficult. Staying away from family for over 300 days was another factor that he thought about. He further said that he was not keen to give up on his roles with Delhi Capitals in the IPL and Channel 7.

“…But [in this job] I am living in India for 300 days a year. Yeah, look I had a couple of conversations with some people during the IPL about it. You know the people I spoke to were pretty hell-bent on trying to find a way to make it work because the first thing I said was ‘I just can’t give up that time, it will mean I can’t coach in the IPL, I’ll have to give up [Channel] 7 stuff in the summer, it just can’t work’. But it’s nice to have people thinking you might be able to do these big jobs but there’s a lot more to come with it than saying yes or no to a coaching gig” said Ponting.

Ponting has coached a few Australian teams in the past and has been coaching Delhi Capitals since 2018. He has worked with Sourav Ganguly closely in DC when the latter was a team mentor during the 2019 season.

The former Australian skipper further said that he was surprised after Rahul Dravid agreed for the coaching role.

Surprised With Rahul Dravid’s Decision To Coach India: Ricky Ponting

“I am surprised that Dravid has done it as well. There was a lot of chat about how happy he was in his Under-19 role or the academy role he had. I am not sure much about his family life but I am pretty sure he’s got youngish kids, at least one anyway. [But] as I said the people I spoke to – they were going to make sure that they get exactly the right person so would have been able to convince Dravid to do it” he said.

---